


There's All I Desire in Your Voice

by bertie456 (bertee)



Series: Bones: You're Lovely to Me [34]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:25:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertie456





	There's All I Desire in Your Voice

It was an established fact that whenever Brennan got dressed up, Booth ended up in some kind of pain.

This wasn't in any way a voluntary arrangement - he'd sworn off that type of sex game after an unfortunate incident with Rebecca and a spatula - but rather some kind of karmic attempt at aversion therapy. Karma would catch Booth ogling his partner in a very non-partner-like way and thus proceed to inflict some sort of pain as a reminder that drooling over Temperance Brennan was cosmically unacceptable.

The first occurrence had been a few weeks into their partnership, when Booth had encountered Brennan on her way to a Jeffersonian fundraiser and had spent excruciatingly long moments trying to convey that she was possibly the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen and yes, he'd very much like to have sex with her. What actually made it out of his mouth was a different matter and after finally stammering the words "You look nice", he'd then headed for the nearest bar on a mission to get stupendously drunk in order to forget his pathetic attempt at a compliment. Mission accomplished, he'd happily detailed just what was so wonderful about the good Dr Brennan to his ex-girlfriend Tessa who had slapped him with impressive force and left him to sleep it off on her hugely uncomfortable couch.

As though taking some sort of precaution, he was already in a hospital bed the next time Brennan appeared in one of her date-worthy black dresses. Somewhat unfairly, Karma didn't seem to rate being blown up as license for opportunistic Bones-appreciation and had engineered events so that Brennan would conveniently fall asleep on Booth's fractured arm, leaving him to suffer in silence as she snuffled contentedly into his elbow, generally being too cute to consider waking up.

And then there had been Vegas. Quickly cottoning on to the fact that Booth was never going to be able to keep his eyes off 'Roxie', Karma had pulled out all the stops and he'd taken a violent beating in the fight ring, ensuring that he was definitely not going to be in any shape to act out the many, varied (and in some cases downright kinky) fantasies he'd greedily nurtured in Sin City. The same had applied at the thwarted Hodgins-Montenegro nuptials, where he'd managed to knock himself unconscious on the edge of a table before any tongue-kissing of the maid-of-honor could take place.

However, despite Karma's stellar efforts to install a Pavlovian reaction of "Bones-ogling equals ouch" in the agent, Booth had instead followed the example of Pavlov's goldfish, wiping his memory clean after seven seconds and returning to the dazed staring with renewed vigor. True, he knew his partner was excellent at what she did and deserved to be treated with nothing but the utmost respect, but there was only so much he could ignore his "Bones pretty. Me want Bones." urges.

Tonight was no exception.

Winding through the darkened streets of DC, he tried hard to keep his eyes on the road while Brennan sat in the passenger seat, doing something which looked remarkably like fondling her own breasts. Before Booth could offer to lend a hand, she sat upright and jiggled experimentally, asking, "Do you think he'll notice the wire?"

Not wanting to inform her that the drug-dealer/murder suspect she was going to meet would undoubtedly be more interested in her breasts rather than the wire hidden beneath them, Booth replied confidently, "He won't notice it, trust me."

Her kohl-lined eyes darted over to him nervously. "Are you sure?"

"Bones, I've seen you smuggle a small cannon in a skintight WonderWoman outfit. Hiding a wire in a dress should be a snap after that." Suddenly realising that the anxiety in her voice could be put to his advantage, Booth quickly changed tack. "But if you don't feel comfortable, maybe you should back out." _And not go undercover in a bar to meet a man who mostly likely bludgeoned his girlfriend to death with a hammer._ He shrugged, adding casually, "Just a thought."

She raised her eyebrows at his incredibly subtle dissuasion attempt, inquiring knowingly, "Do you still have a problem with me going undercover tonight?"

 _Yes. Yes, I do._ "No, no, I just-" He took a deep breath, trying to come up with better reasoning than a Gollum-esque 'Mine, my precious! Mine!'. "I was just worried about him recognising you, that's all. I mean, what if he's read one of your books? Or seen you on a TV interview?"

Brennan smirked. "Drug-dealing murderers are hardly my target demographic, Booth." He glared at her and she sighed, reassuring, "It'll be fine. You'll be nearby if anything goes wrong, and you'll be able to hear everything via the wire."

"I still don't like it," he reiterated, almost sulkily. "You know, we could've just had someone from the Bureau do this."

"Booth, we've been through this already. Another agent wouldn't be able to recognise items which could've made the marks on the bones, and they might not understand the significance of some of the things he says." She fixed him with a stern stare. "We agreed I'd do this."

Pouting slightly, he conceded, "I know we did, and I'm not going to stop you. I just want to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. Going to a bar like this one while you're dressed like that..."

Her eyes widened, and a sudden surge of hope shot through Booth at the thought that she might change her mind. This hope was abruptly dashed and replaced with a stab of guilt when she asked with genuine insecurity, "You mean he might not want to talk to me? That I'll look out of place, or unappealing, or like an undercover forensic anthropologist?"

Skipping over how anyone could possibly identify a forensic anthropologist, let alone an undercover one, he answered quickly, "No! Bones, you look..." _So damn hot that we've nearly crashed twice because I couldn't take my eyes off you._ "Great. Really. He'll be all over you." _Unless he's gay, blind, or being beaten off with a stick by yours truly._ "And he probably won't be the only one. You need to know what you're letting yourself in for."

She gave him a patronising smile. "I can take care of myself, Booth."

The car pulled to a stop a block away from their destination, and he turned to face her, asking one last time, "You sure?"

"Yes," she stated firmly, moving to open the car door. "I'll go in, make contact, and try to get him to talk about Rosa Samuels. If he says anything pertinent, you can arrest him, but otherwise I'll be out in an hour or so."

He nodded. "Alright. I'll be right outside if you need me." _With my gun. And maybe some kind of hittin' stick._

Rolling her eyes, she swung the door shut and walked briskly down the street to the bar, her skyscraper heels clicking loudly on the sidewalk and her dress brushing lightly against the backs of her thighs. Allowing himself to bask in the moment, Booth leaned back in his seat and let his eyes travel slowly down her body, shaking his head in quiet amazement at her choice of outfit for the evening. To his surprise, she hadn't picked the little black number now known as the 'Roxie dress', but had instead selected the other dress she'd worn in Vegas.

Although his recollections of her in the fire-engine red dress were tempered slightly by the memory of getting his ass handed to him by the Incredible Bulk, Booth was starting to prefer that one of the two. Sure, he loved the way she looked in the black dress, and he liked the fact that he'd been the one to pick it out for her, but there was something hugely arousing about the thought of her getting dressed up _for_ him, instead of getting dressed up _by_ him. The fact that she'd gone into a store, tried it on, seen just how low the neckline was, and still bought it to wear around him had contributed greatly to the rush of adrenaline he felt every time he saw her in it.

Watching her sashay her way into the bar, the soft curve of her ass accentuated by the clinging material of the dress, he swallowed hard and resisted the urge to drag her away from the bar and the wandering hands of whoever might be in there.

 _Maybe I could stick a 'Booth's Hands Only' sign on her back,_ he pondered idly, swinging the car into a side alley and flicking the volume up on his transmitter. _Sure, she'd bring up the possessive alpha-male thing again, but she didn't seem to have any objections to me putting my hand on her ass in Vegas._ He thought back to his prior experiences with women. _Actually, I don't think I've ever had any complaints about my hand being in the general 'ass' vicinity. Hmm. Maybe I should try to introduce it into our working relationship. We're already fairly tactile, and she seemed perfectly happy squeezing mine when we were undercover. It's basically a win-win situation; satisfaction guaranteed._ He smirked to himself. _Satassfaction._

Receiving a mental slap from the part of his mind that was less fond of terrible puns, Booth brought his attention back to the conversation now emanating from the transmitter on the center console, and frowned as he heard a man's voice in close proximity to Brennan, asking, "So, do you come here often?"

Booth wrinkled his brow, trying to work out whether the voice belonged to the drug-dealer himself, the interestingly-named 'Ridge', and listened for some kind of clue in his partner's reaction.

Brennan's tone was icy and imperious as she responded curtly, "No."

"Well, maybe I can show you around," the evidently unwelcome man suggested lecherously, his voice sending a shiver downn Booth's spine. "You know, make sure you have a good time..."

The agent's hand instinctively moved to his gun as he fought the urge to charge in and drag the sleaze away from his partner, but he stayed still while Brennan replied coldly, "No, thank you."

"C'mon, sugar," he persisted. "Lemme buy you a drink and we can go sit someplace more private."

Her tiny sigh of resignation was heard through the speaker before she took a deep breath, answering quickly and brutally, "Firstly, do not call me sugar, secondly, I already have a drink, which you might have been able to see if you hadn't consumed an unhealthy amount of alcohol, and thirdly, your body odor is already unpleasant at this distance so I'm highly unlikely to want to move any closer to you."

There was a stunned silence from both the man in the car and the man in the bar.

While Booth let out a mental whoop of happiness, the other man finally regained the ability to speak, stammering in shock, "But-"

He didn't make it to the rest of the sentence. Booth guessed he was now on the receiving end of what he referred to as Brennan's "If looks could castrate..." glare and couldn't stop himself from smirking at the thought of the man slinking away, suitably scared of the formidable anthropologist.

Mildly relieved by Brennan's obvious capability in handling drunken horn-dogs, the agent relaxed back in his seat, propping one knee against the wheel and listening with amusement as she repeatedly turned down various interested parties. With his vast experience of long and boring stakeouts, Booth was surprised to find the time passing relatively quickly while Brennan kept knocking men back, her tone scathing but low enough so as to not be heard by the rest of the patrons and thus spoil her cover.

The more he heard her familiar voice through the transmitter, the more he forgot that she was still dressed up as Roxie, and so was taken by surprise when her accent suddenly changed, and she announced confidently, "I'm easy."

It took a moment for his brain to process the words, but when it did, his body responded instantaneously, jerking upright in his seat as he stared in disbelief at the transmitter as though it could explain just what the hell the respectable doctor had just said. Trying to recall what had prompted the remark, Booth's still shell-shocked mind produced a memory of a deep voice asking smoothly, "So, you playing hard to get, sweetheart?", and tried to focus on their suspect's reply to Brennan's declaration of easiness.

"Are you now? Because you didn't seem all that keen to talk to the men in here," said the man Booth assumed was Ridge.

Brennan laughed briefly, answering teasingly in the same Roxie voice, "Would you be?"

To Booth's relief, Ridge chuckled at the question, asking calmly, "So how come you're talking to me?"

 _Because we want to arrest you,_ Booth thought with a strange stab of jealousy, but Brennan opted for a more appropriate answer, saying suggestively, "Maybe you're more my type."

 _Type? Type? He deals drugs! And probably kills people!_ Booth protested in disbelief. _Sure, as drug dealers go, he's actually quite well-educated and reasonably good looking, but still a drug dealer!_

Despite Booth's disagreement, the other man seemed pleased with Brennan's answer, offering casually, "How about I buy you a drink, and we go sit down?"

 _No..._

"Sure."

 _Dammit, Bones. And you've already got a drink._

"Let me just finish this drink."

 _Always have to be one step ahead, don't you?_ Before his snarky thoughts could continue, Booth wrinkled his nose as the sound of Brennan gulping her drink filtered through the speaker. _Jeez, Bones, could you drink any louder? It's like listening to someone chewing over the phone._ Making a note to tell her about the etiquette concerning downing one's drinks while wearing a wire, Booth again focused his attention back on the conversation when Brennan stopped drinking and when the background chatter in the bar grew quieter as she and their murder suspect moved to sit down.

"You got a name, darling? Or do I just keep calling you Little Miss Easy?"

 _You call her that, and I may be forced to kill you. Slowly. Possibly with some kind of vegetable._

"Call me Roxie," Brennan informed him in Roxie's usual sultry voice. "And you would be...?"

 _A jackass?_

"My friends call me Ridge."

Brennan's smile was almost audible as she purred, "Nice to meet you, Ridge." Another gulp of liquid made Booth wince, and she asked innocently, "So what are you doing here tonight? Do you come here often?"

Ridge chuckled. "I never would've had you down as a girl who used standard lines."

Before Booth could wonder whether his partner even knew what the standard lines were, she answered flirtatiously, "Let's just say I save my originality for other areas."

 _Wha- Oh, Christ, Bones. Way to help me focus._

Impressed, the suspect made a small noise of approval before returning to the original question. "Well, standard line or not, yes, I do come here often. I'm the co-owner."

From his experience of Roxie, Booth was fairly confident that his partner had promptly draped herself over the other man at this knowledge and gritted his teeth as she murmured, voice laced with subtext, "Wow. So you're in charge here? The boss of this _whole_ place?"

 _Oh, subtle. I'm so going to remember this the next time you pull the "women should be just as dominant as men" argument._

"That I am, sweetheart. And what might you be doing in my fine establishment tonight? Waiting for your boyfriend?"

 _Hey, it's subtle-dum and subtle-dee!_

Brennan laughed briefly, her voice becoming coy as she replied, "Not exactly." Booth, and undoubtedly Ridge too, raised his eyebrows and she continued, "He's away in Atlantic City for the week, so..."

 _Bones, you slut!_ Booth thought in amusement, quietly congratulating his partner for playing the Forbidden Fruit card with a man who probably liked a challenge.

"Ah, so you're just trying to keep yourself occupied while he's away," Ridge finished, a knowing tone in his voice. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Right," she confirmed brightly. "Perfectly innocent, and what Tony doesn't know can't hurt him."

 _Wait; Tony? You're cheating on_ me _?_

Ridge laughed briefly. "This Tony sounds like a fool. Probably off with some whore in Atlantic City while you're left here all on your own."

 _I resent that! As if I'd ever choose anyone over Brennan..._

Evidently realising that further Tony-bashing would result in an irate FBI agent charging into the bar with the grace and finesse of an equally irate elephant, Brennan quickly changed the subject, asking curiously, "What about you? Are you seeing anyone?"

There was a pause, which Booth worked out was a shake of the head when Ridge then elaborated, "Not anymore, no."

Seeing an opening, the agent sat up in his seat, willing his partner to seize the chance. _C'mon, Bones. Push, push, push. Imagine you're asking me about something I really don't want to talk about, and keep pushing till he admits defeat..._

"Not anymore?" she pressed with feigned casualness. "Didn't I hear you were dating Rosa-someone a few weeks ago?"

"Where did you hear that?" he snapped quickly, suspicion suddenly coloring his voice, and Booth felt a stab of panic at Brennan's now dangerous lack of subtlety.

 _Don't say from the FBI, don't say from the FBI..._

"Around and about." The charm was back as she flattered, "You're pretty well-known in certain parts of this city. People like to know all about you..." Apparently it worked, as she then continued unabashed, "So you're not together anymore? You and Rosa?"

"No, no, she..." The dealer cleared his throat loudly. "She moved on."

Booth snorted inwardly. _Yeah, to the afterlife, you murdering bastard._

"Moved on?" Brennan asked, a forced lightness to her voice. "She dump you?"

"Babe, do I look like the kind of man who gets dumped?" he asked with bravado before sobering again as he tried to brush it off. "No, it was a mutual thing. We weren't working out, so we went our separate ways. Leaves me free to enjoy to the single life, you know?"

His voice grew louder toward the end of his last sentence, and Booth grimaced at the thought of him moving closer toward Brennan as he covered up his murder of his girlfriend. He heard her shift in her seat, breathing quickening as she settled nearer the suspect and commented, "I guess I can see the appeal of that. But that's why I like what I have with Tony; we both get the chance to have fun somewhere else, but we've always got someone to go back to." She took another sip of her drink and added conversationally, "Plus, the sex is great."

Booth's brain short-circuited at this comment, and he again stared at the transmitter in the hope of receiving an explanation. Unsurprisingly, the inanimate object did not magically produce a psychological analysis of his partner's behavior, so he was forced to listen again intently as Ridge said smoothly, "If it's that great, why're you here? Tony-boy not got the stamina he used to?"

 _Excuse me? My stamina's just fine thank you. Better than fine. It's great, so let's not go making Bones think otherwise, okay?_

Brennan just laughed sweetly. "No, Tony's great." Her tone became more seductive as she detailed further, "It's just that I've found if a relationship's firm, then it makes outside experimentation so much more enjoyable. Knowing you can do whatever you want with whoever you want, and still have your needs met at home whenever you want..." Her voice switched back to knowing as she asked, "Did you and Rosa not meet each other's needs? Because the single life is much more fun when you're not single."

Booth frowned, still confused as to where she was going with this. His sentiments were clearly echoed by Ridge as he inquired, not sure whether to be offended, "You saying I had problems with my girlfriend?"

 _You saying he had problems with his girlfriend? Please tell me you're not taking a shot at motive now because that never works out well._

She made a noise that Booth assumed accompanied a shrug, and said innocently, "No. I just wanted to make sure that everything's in full working order before tonight goes any further."

The implications of the statement hit both men at the same time. Booth's eyes widened and his hand flew to the door handle in preparation for the other man's response, at the same time listening closely to see how the dealer would react.

"Full working order?" Booth allowed himself a smirk at the level of outrage in the man's voice, still gripping the door handle. "Look, I don't know what the hell you think you're saying, sweetheart, but I got no problem pleasing my women. It's not my fault that the bitch decided to sleep around my back with some stupid college kid."

 _Bones, I love you,_ he thought triumphantly, scribbling a note to look for people Rosa Samuels might have been having an affair with.

However, Roxie evidently hadn't finished yet, and said mockingly, "In college? Wow, that's what, fifteen years younger than you?"

"Ten, alright? The goddamn kid's twenty-one and wouldn't live to be a day older if I had any say in it."

 _Great, we got age and a possible assault. Good work, Bones; now stop aggravating the very dangerous man._

Brennan laughed briefly, provoking further, "No wonder you didn't want to tell me why you broke up with your girlfriend. That's got to be kind of embarrassing, her cheating on you like that. Disrespectful, really."

Booth swallowed hard as what sounded like a growl was heard over through the speaker, and Ridge spat angrily, "Don't be talking to me about respect. Rosa got what was coming to her, and you'd do well to keep your nose out of my business. I don't care how good you are in bed; no lay is worth this much hassle."

Despite the fact that their suspect had given them a hell of a lot to go on, Booth's concentration remained focused on his partner, his hand closing round his gun again as he waited nervously to see if she was in danger.

However, Roxie, much like her anthropologist counterpart, seemed to laugh in the face of danger. Or more accurately, flirt shamelessly in the face of danger. "Well, I don't know what kind of lay you're used to having, but trust me, I'm definitely worth this much hassle. Maybe if you weren't so focused on younger _men_ , you might get to find out."

 _Is it wrong that this is turning me on just a little? I've seen her antagonise dozens of people, and god knows I've been antagonised by her on a weekly basis, but somehow it's way less annoying and way more hot when she's Roxie._

"Younger-" Ridge took a deep breath, his anger seeping through the crackly transmitter. "I don't know what kind of crap this dumbass boyfriend of yours puts up with but I'm sure as hell not going to sit here and listen to you talk to me like this."

She clucked her tongue reproachfully. "Shame. I was actually thinking we might've been able to have some fun tonight." Booth could almost picture her pitying expression as she said with faux-sincerity, "Guess I'll just have to find a guy who doesn't lose his women to a kid." Her dress rustled as she got to her feet and she spoke with mocking cheerfulness, "Enjoy the single life."

With effort, Booth restrained himself from doing a physical victory dance in the car as he listened to Brennan's killer heels click their way out of the bar, accompanied by a shout of "Bitch!" from the humiliated drug dealer behind her. Unable to wait any longer, he bounded out of the car with the exuberance of a excited puppy, and jogged round the corner to meet her as she left the bar, a broad grin on his face.

"Bones, that was amazing!"

He reached her side and was pleased to note that her smile matched his own as she asked, "Did we get enough to arrest him?"

"Not yet, but he practically admitted that he had a hand in her death, and we've got the whole boyfriend angle to work on now." He wrapped his arm round her shoulders in a friendly hug as they walked. " _Really_ nice going in there. You know, getting him angry so he'd make a slip instead of trying to coax information out of him. Good call."

She beamed up at him, her smile all Brennan despite the Roxie lipstick, and said teasingly, "You're the one who always says I should stick to what I'm good at."

"When it comes to pissing people off, you are more than good." _And you're not bad at dressing up either,_ his mind filled in, feeling the smooth material of the red dress as his hand slid down to its usual position on her lower back. _Why can't these dresses be introduced instead of lab-coats?_ His mind leapt to the other members of the lab, specifically Doctors Addy and Hodgins, and he grimaced. _On second thoughts, maybe not._

Brennan scowled at him playfully in return for his earlier comment. "I'm going to take that as a compliment. Besides, I didn't see you volunteering to flirt with a murder suspect for information."

Now picturing himself in the red dress and feeling mildly nauseous at the thought, he changed the subject as they reached the car, "We can start looking into the affair tomorrow. For now, I'll drop you back at home and let you get rid of all traces of scumbag."

She smiled gratefully, walking quickly round the SUV as she tried to hold back the shivers from the cool night air. Still in a strangely contented daze from a successful evening of bad-guy-catching and Bones-basking, Booth rested for a moment outside of the car, his arm propped on the open door as his eyes mindlessly followed his partner.

Watching her curled hair bounce above her shoulders and her dress whip around her legs as she hurried into the warmth of the car, he let out a small sigh of self-deprecation at the thought that occurred. _Great, I can ogle her all night and even get turned on by the sound of her voice, but somehow fall at the 'By the way, I quite like you' hurdle. Jeez, I'm pathetic sometimes._

Dragged back to reality by the sound of the passenger door slamming shut, Booth's mouth curved up in an optimistic smirk as he realised cheerfully, _Hey, at least I managed to stay pain-free this time. A whole evening of catching bad guys with a dressed-up Bones and I didn't get blown up, beaten up, or knocked out by a deceptively solid table._ He moved to get into the car, his smirk morphing into a full-blown grin. _I call that a success._

The last thought barely made it out of his head before said head impacted hard against the car roof as he slid inside.

Karma apparently disagreed.


End file.
